Orphan
Content or assets that are not referenced by any published page or other content. Orphans may indicate removed content that still exists, or content that should be cleaned up.
Detection
Content not linked from any other content and not listed in the manifest. Assets not referenced by any content's frontmatter or content.
Handling
Orphans do not cause build failures but may indicate stale content.
Use check or doctor to diagnose broader project health.
Remove orphaned content or assets if they are no longer needed.
Orphan Detection via Diagnostics
Orphan detection is enabled through the diagnostics configuration. When enabled, diagnostics reports isolated entries without stopping the build. The diagnostics plugin checks content graph reachability: content not linked from any other content and not listed in the manifest is flagged as an orphan.
Example
# Enable orphan reporting in diagnostics
# (configure via diagnostics plugin settings)
# Orphan report output (example)
# 3 orphan notes detected:
# - note-404 (no incoming links, not in manifest)
# - note-draft (linked only in draft folder, excluded from publish)
# Use `inspect content --list` to see which entries are unreachable.